I was born in a big grey cloud
Screaming out a love song
All the broken chords and unnamed cries
What a place to come from
I wish to remain nameless
And live without shame
'Cause what's in a name, oh
I still remain the same
-Florence and the machine
The bar is packed enough to have her consider turning around again. People are gathered around a small stage where a bearded man is singing in Spanish, an acoustic guitar on his knees and a certain melancholy in his voice that has her enter after all.
As angry as she had been about the forced leave from work at first, she is now happy that she decided to take this trip to Peru. Her father had been anxious throughout her entire time, calling numerous times a day but the country had just been… right, in a way she can't seem to explain for herself.
There is an empty seat over at the bar and she orders a beer while sitting down. From her spot she has a perfect view of the stage and watches the man singing on it for a good while, listens to his words, grasping only the echo of their meaning.
Love.
Loss.
Far away.
The Spanish drips from his lips like fluent glass, like it could reach out and reflect the dim light of the room to cast it in gold.
"He's great isn't he?" a male voice tears her out of her trance.
"What?"
"The singer," the man next to her gestures to the man on stage. He looks familiar somehow, a good smile, crinkles around his eyes, skin marred from laughter. There is a notebook lying in front of him, filled with scribbled words in cursive handwriting.
"You're American right?" he asks, still smiling.
"Yeah, New York," she replies and she's not entirely sure why. Maybe the openness of the people from Peru has started to fade into her own skin.
"London," he says.
"You don't sound British."
He chuckles at that and nods, "Originally from New York."
He extends his hand now, "I'm Richard."
Castle.
She remembers the book covers now. The signing. She knows him, or well… she knows his words.
"Kate," she says, taking his offered hand and squeezing it firmly. It's a cop handshake, as one of her boyfriends had called it. Right before breaking up with her because she was "too forceful."
"A good name," he says and it sounds like he means it.
"What are you doing here then?" she asks, bringing the beer bottle to her lips to take a sip.
"Needed some time off from the city. As much as I love it, I couldn't think."
"So you went to the loudest bar in the area?" she almost laughs.
He grins and raises his glass to her, "different noise."
"How's New York then?" he asks after seconds of silence.
"Same old, I'm afraid nothing's changed."
"Hmm," he nods.
"What made you move?" she asks, even though of course she knows. She read the papers, big headlines announcing the big change in his career. Richard Castle to take on James Bond. There was a hustle with publishing companies and events in London that eventually made him move to the city; it was on page one for weeks.
"Got a new job," he says noncommittally and she decides to leave it at that. He doesn't know her either. It's only fair.
"What made you come here?" he asks then.
"Had to take some time off myself," she says and shrugs, trying to ignore the painful stab right between her breasts, where the moon-shaped scar tissue pulls to remind her that some wounds reach deeper than skin.
"When are you going back?"
"Tomorrow," she replies unenthusiastically. She will miss the melodic noise and the anonymity. She will miss the lack of responsibilities. She will miss feeling like just another face in the crowd, as opposed to the walking time bomb she has become in her work place.
She wants to stay here where no one asks, "are you okay?" or "are you sure you can handle it, Beckett?"
She's not sure she can handle anything anymore.
Just walking, breathing, and repeat.
It's enough here.
"Me too," he says, voice almost matching hers at the prospect of leaving.
They both stare at their glasses until the singer decides to take a break and Castle… Richard turns around again.
"What do you say we make this last night count?"
She stares at him, eyes wide.
"Not like that, "he laughs, eyebrows raised like he is scolding a child. "I just meant, let's go out, see the town, the beach, whatever, everything is more beautiful in the dark."
"Okay," she says before her mind can catch on. "Why not?"
The noise of the town seems to encompass them as they slowly start walking down the poorly tarred street leading to the beach. He's carrying a jacket over his shoulder and they're walking slower than she ever has. She can feel the beat of music through the stone, someone is playing something acoustic in a car passing by and even the sky seems to be filled with sound. She likes the way her own heartbeat gets caught in the soundtrack of the night and just fades into the cadences. Like it's nothing.
Like it's easy.
"Tell me one true thing about you," Castle asks. And for some reasons she wants to tell him. Something, anything. Maybe it's because his hands are rough, and big, like they could hold her words, or maybe because of the way he wrote his own down.
"I'm a cop," she says.
One foot in front of the other. Her scar pulls and she reaches up to her shirt and presses her fingers lightly against the fabric covering up the debris-like skin. His eyes hold hers. But he doesn't ask.
"I'm a writer," he says instead and all she wants to say is I know.
"I'm cleared to go back to duty next week."
"I haven't written a good word in months."
She wants to say more but her heart is in all the wrong places and she struggles to reach for words and for air to support them.
"Do you ever wonder if you could find yourself in the stars?" his words tear her away from her silent battle.
Her breaths are still hollow but she looks at him and eventually up at the sky.
They have reached the outer part of the city now, palm trees seam the street, superseding the endless rows of houses and the sky is starting to clear up to an abundance of stars.
"There are so many constellations, don't you ever wonder whether maybe you could find one that would fit you?" he adds.
She smiles at the idea and their feet touch sand as they walk further toward sea.
"I never thought about it."
"Yours could be like a gun, because you're c op," he muses.
Or because one bullet has started to define her life now.
"You wanna sit?" he asks then, pointing to some abandoned beach chairs close to the sea shore and she nods.
It's easier than expected. Talking. Occasionally laughing. He's easy to talk to, full of stories and questions and she finds that the words fall easily.
His phone rings and he presses ignore.
"My publisher," he says, noticing her raised eyebrow. "I don't know how to tell her that I haven't written anything useful yet. I hoped this trip might inspire me, but I have only written small things, no real stories, nothing for the character I was supposed to write for anyway."
"Who did you write about then?"
"I don't know. She's a handful, brilliant, clever, but I don't really know her face, it's kind of like writing with your eyes closed, you can only feel, not see."
She nods and he looks at her the way she looked up at the stars.
"You're honest," she states and she doesn't know why.
"Nothing to lose really, is there?"
She looks at him quizzically and he adds, "you're a stranger from Peru, I only know your first name and tomorrow we both leave for countries on opposite sides of the world. Honesty doesn't hurt me here."
She stares at the sea for a while, at waves that reach higher and higher until they eventually flood the shore only to be pulled back by some invisible power to try again.
"I was shot."
He doesn't say anything but she can feel his eyes on her, the way they write words onto her skin with endless possibility.
"I couldn't go back to the job for a while, they told me to take some time off, so I came here." Her fingers leave moon-shaped indents in the soft skin of her thighs and she can feel him reaching for her hands. He hesitates for a second, leaves his hands hovering close to hers, until she turns her palms around and allows him to pull them away from the bruises she inflicts on herself.
"I couldn't stand the way they looked at me. It was easier here."
He just nods, hands still around hers. They're warm, and rough and good.
And he was right. The honesty doesn't hurt as much here.
"Do you want to dance?" he asks and pulls at her hands softly.
"There's no music," she shakes her head.
"There's the sea," he says before pulling her to her feet.
She almost ends up stumbling against him but he manages to catch her and transform the fall into a swing move before gently guiding her into a slower dance.
She's taken off her shoes and the sand brushes like velvet against her feet. They're close enough to the sea that occasional waves manage to reach them just before they are pulled away again.
It's just them at the beach and no one else for miles, just the moon and the susurrus of the ocean.
She tells him about a coffee shop she has been visiting for the past two weeks. It's somewhere at the far end of the boulevard at the edge of the beach line. It overlooks the entire sea and only few people ever walk all the way up there so it's relatively quiet and peaceful.
The night is starting to fade gently into a vague gray as they make their way up there. She's still carrying her shoes in her hands and small pebbles dig into the soles of her feet every so often.
"How did you even find this place?" he asks when they reach the end of the road and enter the small café.
The walls are clad in white-painted wood, decorated with occasional picture frames that display photographs of coffee plantations and smiling people.
"I go for morning walks a lot and enjoyed the quiet up here." He knows what she means. Sometimes this country can be a bit much, traffic, people, music, filling every inch of space in the air. But up here the silence is almost tangible, almost like it is a living thing, encompassing them and spending comfort.
He looks around in the main room of the café then. It's small but the entire front side is made out of open-wide windows and flower baskets that make it seem like this small locale could touch down at the edge of the sea.
She steers them over to a small table right next to a small orange tree. There is a soft breeze waving up to them from the ocean, carrying the smell of salt and rain, intermingling with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
The sun is starting to rise at the horizon, coloring the sky in a whole spectrum of shades reaching from deep blue to fading rose. There are almost no clouds scattered across the surface and she thinks that she understands why artists have spent decades trying to capture such beauty.
"So when do you have to leave?" he asks.
"I have to be at the airport at 5, you?" her fingers play with the small arrangement of flowers, placed in the middle of the table in front of them.
"At 4."
4 is good. 4 is still hours away.
"Are you tired?" He's been trying to determine that from her eyes for the past few minutes. She seems exhausted, but not in a way that sleep could cure.
"No."
"Used to not sleeping a lot?"
"You could say that." She smiles a painful kind of half-smile at her reply.
Sleeping is tough when your breath collapses into dust and your heart climbs into your mouth at every sound outside because you think you are dying.
Staying awake is easier. It doesn't come with as many edges and more crevices for her to slip in and hide.
"Coffee then?" he asks, and gets up to move to the counter as she nods.
He comes back only moments later, balancing two huge, white mugs in his hands and places them on the small bistro table between them. The coffee is still hot and the swirling steam exudes an aroma that is so much richer than what they are used to.
"Sometimes I wish I could stay here forever," she says quietly before she lifts the mug to her lips.
"I do too, sometimes."
"How long were you here?"
"Almost a month."
"Me too." She takes one small sip of the still scalding hot liquid. It's less sweet than it is in the states, reaches deeper somehow.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" A driving by car almost drowns his words but she still catches them.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I came for inspiration and I did find some," he shrugs, "but nothing with substance to it, at least not yet." He's looking at her now and she thinks about his question for a while.
"I guess I came looking for me." It's a quiet revelation, more to herself than to anyone else.
"After the shooting-" her teeth cut into the already chapped flesh of her lower lip for a second, "I guess I kind of lost myself?"
She's not sure how to explain it properly.
How could she explain that sometimes when she looks in the mirror and finds the full-moon-indent of the bullet in the valley of her breasts, she flinches away from her own reflection? How does she explain that she used to be so good at her job, so terribly, terribly good? And that now her hands tremble whenever she touches a gun, that she gasps whenever her finger touches the trigger?
How does she explain that sometimes, late at night, she curls in on herself, as if she could fold herself into something stronger, something better?
"I guess I was just trying to be myself again, without anyone watching."
He nods and his fingertips brush against hers for the briefest of moments.
"You'll be okay."
"How do you know?"
"Because, as a writer I'm always rooting for the happy ending."
"So I'm living a fairy tale now?" she almost laughs.
"Well to be fair, Sleeping Beauty was down for a century and still got up again."
"I'm Sleeping Beauty then?"
"Oh no, you're more like Mulan, fierce warrior, fighting for her beliefs," he nods along with his explanation like it is the most logical thing in the world.
"And who does that make you, Mushu?"
He purses his lips into a pout at her words.
"Well, I have you know, I make an excellent plucky sidekick."
"I bet you do," she replies and can't help but think that they'd make quite the duo. A writer and a cop, fighting crime.
"So what's your favorite color?"
"What?" His question is so out of context that it takes her a couple of seconds to catch up.
"Well you know, seeing as we already know all this deep stuff about each other I think it's only fair I get to know this trivia knowledge about you," he says completely serious, fingers twirling the now empty coffee cup in his hands.
She shakes her head, a soft smile tucking at the corners of her lips as she replies, "it's purple."
"Mine is blue."
"Favorite food?" he goes on asking then, looking at her with this eager, puppy-like expression that is as endearing as it is ridiculous.
"Are we playing 20 questions now?"
"Do you want us to?"
"Isn't it my turn to ask then?" she laughs.
"Ask away." He leans back on the small chair, hands still on the table, playing with the small arrangement of flowers in between them.
"Okay," she ponders her possibilities for a second before she decides on a question. "Most embarrassing moment?"
"Ohh, where to start?" he taps his fingers against his chin lightly and puts on a "thinking face" that mirrors that of a comic book character.
"Okay," a smile starts to stretch on his face, "let me tell you the story of how I was once arrested by a very grumpy police officer, because I was riding his horse…naked."
She smiles as she settles back against her own chair. This is going to be interesting.
It's 3pm when they start their descend into the more vibrant part of the city again. He needs to grab his luggage from the storage room in his hotel and she needs to get back to her own and check out. And even still they are walking slowly, and with a certain melancholy clinging to their steps.
He points out various formations he sees in the clouds and neither one of them is quite ready to point out that their parting is rapidly approaching.
They come to a halt at a crossroads and he turns around to face her. The sun is high and he has to squeeze his eyes to see her.
"You know, I wish I could have met you back in New York; things would be so different now." He smiles a small smile that is way too sad to match his crinkled eyes.
"I know what you mean."
"Maybe she'd have a face." He doesn't have to elaborate. She remembers what he told her about his writing here.
She tries to smile at him but it is all sorts of ajar and painful and so she stops right away.
"Goodbye Kate." He leans forward and brushes the softest of kisses onto her cheek. "It's been an honor to meet you."
He smiles at her one last time before he turns around to go his separate way, heading in the opposite direction of her, and she thinks that there is something terribly cliché about parting at a crossroads.
(And that she still understands why dozens of singers used it to explain what goodbye feels like.)
She thinks about him on the plane.
She thinks about him when she is above the clouds and all she sees is formations and ridiculous tales.
She thinks about him when she lands and a poster for the new James Bond movie is hung outside the airport.
She thinks about him when she comes back home and the first thing she looks for are his books. They are all still neatly stacked on her shelf, side by side, hardbacks brushing against each other.
She looks at his signature in her copy of In a hail of bullets, and the way he wrote her name in his cursive script.
She even thinks about him when she makes herself a coffee the next morning. It tastes stale and faded and she pours almost all of it down the drain.
It's irritating.
She isn't like this.
She doesn't dwell on could-have-beens.
She doesn't think about if-onlys.
And still she wonders how he is doing whenever she looks at the sky and doesn't find any stars.
It's been a week since she came back, when her phone rings at 10 in the evening. It's an unknown number but she recognizes the British area code and for a second she doesn't think she can handle it.
"Hello," she answers then. Her voice is breathy and for a second she steals her features and prays for her voice to catch up on it.
"Hi, it's me," he says and adds needlessly, "Rick."
"I figured," she says, pleased to find her voice with more substance now.
"Right, I forgot you're a cop."
There is silence on the line for just long enough to become uncomfortable.
"I hope it's okay I called."
"How did you get my number?"
"It's a long and complicated story," he says, voice fading with his words.
"It's okay," she reassures him then.
"I don't-" he starts speaking but breaks off just as quickly. "I don't really know what we are Kate, but it's raining over here and I was thinking about you and about how you are this stranger on the other side of the world that somehow knows all of my secrets and I don't think-" he sighs, clearly frustrated with himself for not being able to string words into formation anymore.
"And I don't think I am quite ready to say goodbye to that."
Silence stretches between them again in a way that makes the miles between them entirely tangible, like they are living, breathing things, caught in between their receivers.
"I don't really think I am either," she says then.
AN: I'm not entirely sure what to make of this tbh. I haven't written in a while so I hope this was alright J
Twitter: concreteskies
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